How VW aced diesel emissions tests (hint: like Tom Brady, only in reverse)

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More information is coming out on the specifics of how Volkswagen managed to do so well on diesel emissions testing. Recall how Tom Brady allegedly lowered the air pressure in his footballs to make them easier to catch? VW did the opposite, overinflating the tires to give them less resistance. It also mixed diesel fuel into the motor oil to reduce internal friction and improve economy. This from the German newspaper Bild am Sontag, quoting VW engineers and internal reports.

Separately, VW in the US is offering a make-good of $1,000 to owners of VW diesels: $500 as a Visa prepaid credit card that can be used anywhere and $500 in credit to be used at a VW dealership for services, accessories, or possibly toward a new VW. Taking VW’s money doesn’t affect the owners’ rights to seek other recourse, the company says. If you paid $30,000 for your VW diesel, that’s a 3.3% rebate.

Where VW and owners stand

Over the summer, it came to light that VW diesels could sense when they were being emissions-tested and only then did the car’s software put them in lowest-emissions mode. At other times, the cars ran dirtier. The number of cars affected has climbed into the millions. Sales of VW diesels were halted in the US. Audi and Porsche, other brands affiliated with Volkswagen, have been linked tothe emissions problem. The liability might approach $100 billion, possibly more than the company is worth.

Inflategate: The crisis continues to build

The German newspaper said it talked with several Volkswagen engineers and learned that tampering with the testing process began in 2013, the year after departed CEO Martin Winterkorn said VW would reduce CO2 emissions 30% by 2015. VW’s technical wizards found the goal impossible to meet through engineering wizardry. Instead, they turned to trickery.

One tactic was to increase tire pressure to 3.5 bar or 51 pounds per square inch, 10-15 psi higher than most cars run at. A stiffer tire has less rolling resistance and better fuel economy. A tire pumped up that high, especially with low-profile tires, might be more susceptible to blowouts on potholes. It would also be less comfortable for passengers. Lower pressure improves the ride in cars and makes footballs easier to catch. Until the league catches you doing it and proves its case. Here, VW appears to be in hotter water than the New England Patriots.

Another trick was to mix diesel fuel into the motor oil, supposedly to make the car run smoother and use less fuel. It’s not clear if VW meant on cars built for customers or only for tested vehicles. Diesel is a waxy fuel with some lubricating properties — certainly more than gasoline — but thinner than motor oil, so it’s unclear if engine wear might be affected.

Giving customers a bone

Monday’s announcement of $1,000 awards to diesel owners drew some immediate pushback, particularly from lawyers who a) have a deep understanding of credit card rules in South Dakota (where the VW credit cards are being issued) and b) might represent VW owners in lawsuits. The lawyers say the credit rules are confusing, so when VW promises, “Taking the gift card and dealership credits [$500 each] doesn’t affect the owner’s right to sue,” maybe it might. Or so they say.

Back in September, we predicted that VW would need to sweeten the pot to keep owners loyal with “make-good cash in the thousands, not hundreds, and a goodwill coupon for your next Volkswagen.” The $500-plus-$500 awards are a start. We doubt VW intends the wording on the gift cards to steal their legal rights. More likely, VW is as confused by the fine print on credit cards as we are.

VW is also offering incentives to dealers. One is an offer to buy back used (and currently unsalable) VW diesels at the price they were worth before the emissions scandal broke. (Sorry, dealers only, not owners.) The $500 dealership-only credit also drives business to dealers.

These methods are (unfortunately) entirely legal when it comes to the actual procedure used when testing emission levels and fuel consumption, NEDC (in EU, same kind of crap in the US) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_European_Driving_Cycle
These guys are very flexible with the word “new”.

Basically you might as well drive a bicycle with your make and model taped to it and call it legit.

Don’t imagine the people in power had no idea what was going on. But it was a profitable business. VW and others sell more, legislators get more to line their pockets. Now they’re trying to silence people with a little cash and I bet it will mostly work. Unless huge fines (think billions) are applied this whole thing was still proditable for VW. Then again you can’t fine VW more than GM was fined after killing 124 users and lying about defects in 30 million cars.

thgy

Exactly. VW’s NOx defeat device was unique (as far as we know) and genuinely against regs; everything in this article is par for the course and used by basically all car manufacturers.

close

It was unique in its implementation. Otherwise defeat devices that trigger or disable other mechanisms if certain conditions are met have been used by many manufacturers in the past for the same purpose. Even VW was caught using them before but since the penalty is less than the payoff it’s all in a day’s work.

Quenepas

I might as well drive the Flintstones car smh…

Plyphon

Manufacturers have been doing this for years, completely an open secret. I could of told you months/years ago they over inflated tyres, taped up body work seams, took all spare equipment out of the car, etc.

Someone was telling me once Harly Davidson tuned a flatspot into their bikes because the emission tests occurred at a very specific RPM. So they tuned the engine to have better consumption at that exact RPM.

They’re all at it. No one’s shit doesn’t stink here. Including American manufacturers.

Bill

So… whats the big deal? Yes, they lied and VW doesn’t make the standard of efficiency they said they would but how bad is the real fuel economy and how bad are the emissions? I bet ya, it’s still better that most other (US) cars. Why are they rebating their customers with petty cash? If you see how wasteful most Americans live, surely you cant state that their gross impact on the environment is adversely affected by VW cheating a few percent points on emission vallues?! It all seems a little bit overdrawn although I think that VW should be fined by the governament bigtime to set an example.

Marc GP

Id don’t know about USA, but on my country the big deal is that VW enjoyed of huge subsidies due to those supposed levels of efficiency.

That’s billions of euros of public money that they got lying and cheating.

Bill

Those billions should be put to a better use… like setting up a public electric vehicle loading network like Tesla is trying to do. That would realy make a much bigger impact on the environment. because the biggest incentive for car makers not to build decent (normal looking) cars and consumers not to buy (one influences the other) is range anxiety. Getting one car off liquid fuel onto electric would outweigh a hundred of vehicles with 1% better (hydrocarbon) fuel efficiency.

It would be an ironic punishment for VW if they were forced to finance that instead of being just sued and fined.

DB

“Like Brady”

Cheap, cheap, cheap…………..

Quenepas

“The liability might approach $100 billion, possibly more than the company is worth.” a line that would make any CEO faint.

Sweetie

CEOs get golden parachutes. It’s the workers who lose their pensions.

JD

The Patriots bashing was totally out of place in this article. Especially considering the League never proved it’s case and that the “science” they were using was faulty. Brady very likely knew that the deflating was going on, but being able to prove it or even prove that the balls were intentionally deflated is another matter. The League failed and only made themselves look like idiots out to grind an ax.

Crunchy005

IDK I kind of enjoyed it myself. They found him guilty and he got off do to a BS reason, this is exaclty why I hate sports. Like any kind of morals are upheld and athletes have a tendency to get away with acts that would land any other person in trouble. You say the courts science was off? What about the patriots saying O, well ummmm…it was cold and the PSi goes down when it’s cold. Not that that argument was shown to be false a dozen times over.

JD

The courts science wasn’t off. The NFL’s science was off. The only people to find him guilty was the NFL and when it went to an actual court the NFL was laughed out of the room. I don’t have any particular love for Brady, I’m a Falcon’s fan, but if you’re going to try and pin something on someone or an organization make damn sure you have your facts straight and are using good evidence.

DB

The NFL “Officials” are like Crunchy500 above, they don’t understand what the cold can do to inflated items. Troy Vincent publicly admitted that.

DB

Crunchy, stay away from scientific articles because if you can’t even understand the direct relationship between PSI and ambient temperature, your head will explode with the stuff above the 5th grade level.

Also regarding “that argument was shown to be false a dozen times over.” Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking and it’s still at the pre-kindergarten level, so wait a few decades and maybe you will improve.

Everybody else sees your limits while only you think that you are brilliant. You can’t see it so the rest of us just enjoy the laugh.

Thank you,

Crunchy005

First, please learn how to copy paste, it’s crunchy005 not crunchy500. Second, I love how you decided to be ten years old and stoop to name calling. Now the argument I was referring to in question was Belichick reference to the fact that the stadium was cold and the footballs were filled in a warmer room to cause a decrease in measured temperature. As Bill Nye pointed out these conditions were not enough to cause the large difference in pressures noticed by the refs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSY_QZKt1NI . If we look at what Bill Nye referenced in the video of a ~6% change in pressure. As the relationship of pressure to temperature is direct this is true that pressure would have gone down do to the temperature change. Although it does not go down enough to explain the readings given by the refs. So there was most likely some air taken out of the ball to reduce pressure further. Either way I don’t appreciate the childish name calling, come back when you decide to grow up.

JD

As far as Bill Nye goes. He was referring to the now proven false air pressures published in the press. The actual pressures were no where near what were reported, but even those are controversial because the refs had two different gauges which gave vastly different readings and nobody kept track of which gauges were used in each measurement.

DB

See what I meean crunchy0000.5.
You are misinformed and STUPID!

Crunchy005

And you just demoted yourself to a 5 year old. At least JD provided some sort of counter argument and didn’t just resort to name calling, lol.

DB

You deserve it with your uninformed comments. You don’t know what you are talking about.

This stuff is SO OLD and there you are……….

Crunchy005

Old maybe but I don’t feel it was ever disproven well by the other side. There were more questions than anything ever answered by either side. Don’t act like anyone on the patriots actually made sense or has a brain.

DB

Hey fellow, I see that you are of limited intelligence.
You might want to re-think your logic. The NFL must PROVE their assertion. It is not Brady’s responsibility to disprove a lie.

See what I mean. You are not thinking.

Crunchy005

If he is being accused, if you were on the defense in a court case your not going to try and prove the prosecution wrong? No he is not required to dis prove anything but it was in his best interest to disprove(hide) what was being said. My logic is fine, again you need to stop acting childish in your comments it’s kind of embarassing.

DB

Thank you, you have revealed your thinking and line of reasoning.
Enjoy you day.

Crunchy005

Fair enough, I still don’t’ think the Patriots offered any good counter argument, all in all it was a huge joke across the board. Although that’s sports in general I guess.

Dano

The title is misleading. There is, nor has there been proof Tom Brady had anything to do with deflated balls. Provide absolute proof, and I will recant this statement

Sweetie

The article is full of weird problems, like this:

“We doubt VW intends the wording on the gift cards to steal their legal rights. More likely, VW is as confused by the fine print on credit cards as we are.”

Your doubt has no data to support it other than the fact that the company that has just been caught doing systematic fraud… did systematic fraud.

We’re supposed to give a rich multinational corporation, one that was just exposed for sophisticated systemic fraud, the benefit of the doubt based on the notion that it’s just like a typical consumer?

Lonnie Veal

“…VW’s technical wizards found the goal impossible to meet through engineering wizardry. Instead, they turned to trickery….”

I Love how it’s ALWAYS the Engineers that everyone points the fingers at. It’s like all the Poor Executives were tasered and locked into soundproofed Conference Rooms and left beating on the doors, screaming: “No-No, Nein-Nein! Don’t Do This! Why? Why?” thru the Glass Window. Meanwhile the dastardly Engineers booted up their Workstations and proceeded to set the course for the Company…because only THEY had the GUTS to do what was Needed.

AndrewZ

Haven’t laughed so hard in weeks. Brilliantly written, its like I was there seeing it happen.

Sweetie

You misinterpreted the article’s statement. The point was not that at all. It was exactly that the non-engineers, who were mouthing off in public with impractical claims, were the ones driving the policy.

Lonnie Veal

Oh, I did not ‘Mis-interpret’ the article’s thrust. However, although most of us who understand Corporate Culture know that it was an Executive’s Decision to implement this ‘software solution’…the news pieces NEVER seem to name an Executive Office or Position. Likewise, there are No internal email threads and No leakers in sight for a hundred miles. We are seeing ironclad PR at work.

But the Articles are very quick and easy to ‘generally wave a hand’ in the direction of the Engineers. They don’t NAME any Engineers, per se, but they NEVER EVER print the Words ‘Supervising Executive’ or ‘Departmental Heads’. Isn’t that kinda funny? It’s like VW was a flattened island of Knowledge Worker Egalitarianism where the Executives waited quietly in their corner offices for the Engineering groups to bring them the brilliant solutions, after which the Executives would then turn on their Laptops and work all Day and Night to formulate complementary Corporate protocol as per the Engineer’s recommendations.

At least– that’s an SNL fantasy. But we do know what the reality is:

Kind of the way a Boss who insists on the Dept follow Protocol X, Y & Z because HE KNOWS it’s a great idea….but when everything blows up, the first words out of the same Boss’s mouths is: “Well, We ALL made some mistakes here…” You know how that line goes when the brown stuff hits the fan: “There’s No ‘I’ in Team.”

Thus, my Ironic Take on the article.

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